My Small Success Thursday

 Years ago, I ran Small Success Thursday every Thursday for Catholicmom.com. It's now on Instagram and I'm not, so I'm going to just restart posting Small Success Thursday each Thursday to force me to hold to my 500 words  a day, no outs, no excuses mantra until I run out of words.   

Small Success Thursday is about taking stock of the prior week to see the little victories that help one be grateful for the things that otherwise might get lost in the course of seven days. In this time of Covid, cultivating gratitude is a form of self preservation and a reminder that even when things are pretty much the same, there are moments that should be celebrated.   

1) In the past week, we've acquired a new car, a new toaster and a new dishwasher. All three machines just decided their time was up and they weren't going to do anything more.  The mechanic took the car for what looks like a month and a half break.  The toaster found its place in the trash can and the new one ambled its way over the course of seven days from wherever it was in the Amazon warehouse to our home. The plumber took away the old dishwasher that was a machine and not working.  The old dishwasher that is not a machine is still working and wondering if she stopped working, would she get to retire too?   

2) Restarted my writing 500 words a day to get my writing brain back into regular practice. It had taken what I would call a month off (Feb), after the conference.  

3) Looked at my shoes and thought about walking.  Waiting for the temperature to be above my age.   or at least within a decade.   

4) Visited with a few important people in my life, family, friends, which somehow had fallen by the wayside --how we can get too busy when we're not going anywhere is proof we are capable of infinite distraction in every circumstance.  

5) Watched a movie I hadn't seen and read a book I hadn't read.   (Progress again, against watching things I've already seen, and looking at text I already knew).   

That's my list of Small Successes of this past week.  Hope your week was filled with small successes too.  

Small Success Thursday

 We need to count our blessings more than usual this year and so while yesterday, I spent some time insulting the year, today, I will remember how grateful I am for the unexpected gifts of 2020.  

In this time of quarantine, my youngest son turned twelve, and in this past six months he learned to ride a bicycle without assistance, to wash dishes, make his bed, take a shower or bath without help, became fully potty trained, can cream his mother in video games, operate the xbox --which I can't, and help out with yard work.  He can make himself breakfast --either cereal or out of a toaster, safely.  He can pour himself juice.  He learned to use a butter knife to spread and make a sandwich, and to cut his own food.   These are all life skills he'll need for the rest of his life, lifeskills he might not have mastered but for the urging of his siblings to have him learn what they know.   

These are stollen moments from ordinary time.  

My husband got to be home for all of his childrens' birthdays this year so far, (our youngest had her birthday on a Sunday so), which has never happened before, because work is downtown.   We've taken walks and said the rosary.  We've danced more. We've sung more. We've baked bread and played cards and it's been like six months of whole time, and that is a gift too.   

This week, I started walking again, with my children, different ones each day, but that too is a gift.  

When I left for college, I remember my not yet eight year old sister running after the car down the street until she got to the corner where we turned away.  My nine year old has been able to enjoy the relationships with her older siblings that wouldn't be here if life were normal.  

None of this means I'm glad that Covid-19 is, or that I want it to last, but I will count the blessings of the day because that is how we are meant to survive crisis and difficulties and sufferings.  We are to look to why we are grateful, when things are hardest, to look for reasons to give praise.  It is the only way to stave off the temptation, the indulgence of becoming discouraged.   

Lastly, my son and I saw a huge rainbow.  We took it as a sign the disease will leave soon, as a reminder that God loves us with His whole heart, and wants all of us home.   

Happy Small Success Thursday! 

Small Success Thursday

Last week, my son turned 21, and I decided, as a gift to my family, I would begin working out again. (Not at a gym mind you), but walking and/or as I call it, wogging --where you jog down hill.  Wogging has resulted in me setting an actual weight goal, which I've already discovered, is going to be a lot of work. 

That being said, every day this week, I've gotten up at 6:30 and gone for a walk/wog.  I've gone from the five pounds past my you shall not pass point, to one pound past my you shall not pass point.  This you shall not pass point is five pounds over what the old you shall not pass point was, so that will be the next goal post.

I've been told my children who run regularly, that 90% of exercise is willing it, willing to do it.  I am lousy with will on this point.  So I started wogging from one mail box to the next, and then to the next...and became irritated, because I'm following the philosophy of Frozen 2, do the next right thing and then the next and then the next with respect to exercise.  The morality isn't wrong, it's just the movie isn't good.

However, it's now day eight, and I've lost four pounds in the first week of committing to this, so I'm reporting it as part of my small success Thursday.  I'm hoping to keep this up, and SST is a good place to state, these are my goals.

These are my goals:  Lose (over the course of a year, 32 pounds).  Get 52 articles published (one a week), finish writing my book, and read a book a week.  These are the ambitions for the year.  They fold into parenting, living, working, learning, and all the ordinary chores that clog up any week --like getting my sons their physicals, getting the car fixed, and registering people for classes and preparing one child for confirmation.  Every week is jammed with lots, and sometimes the lots overwhelms.

Still, I'm blessed beyond blessed during this time of Covid-19, that at the moment, all of us are healthy, and we have each other to play spades and hearts with (trounced them all two nights in a row), to throw water balloons with --there was a full scale war in the back yard today, and to feast with at dinner time.   Hope your week was full of small successes.  If you need me, I'll be out wogging tomorrow.

Small Success Thursday

Today I restart this series that I kept up for years: Small Success Thursday. 

It's July 23rd and my son turned twenty-one today.  We feasted on Bucca-di-Bepo, we had chocolate chip cookies and sang Happy Birthday.  We played electronic pictionary (cool tech version where the artist can't see the drawing as they draw) and watched opening night of baseball until it rained. 

I am grateful for this son, for his humor, for his quiet leadership, for his courage, for his personal integrity, for his kindness and class --he's been a leader in high school, and college has been good for him.  He's a fun person to just be with...even if no one but perhaps his younger brother can keep up with him. 

Having everyone home means  I get some quiet monents with individual kids I wouldn't, and I love those moments. Walks with some, baking with others, just silly times playing dolls with the youngest, and the moments you can't script, like hearing one sing along to the radio that doesn't normally sing.  I love those hidden gems the best. 

This marks my I don't know how many times I've tried this attempts at fitness.  I've been working out by getting up and walking.  This is week 1, day three.   Hope it doesn't rain tomorrow so I can keep up the process.   

That's my report for this week, and I hope all of you have a great week filled with Small Successes. 

Over at the Register today

Wrote this about a two months ago, Are You Anxious about Things? Count your Blessings.

Small Success Thursday

I told you I'd restart this and I have.  Today's Thursday and once a week, starting today, we will go over the past week and count the blessings that came.  It's a reminder to me of 1) what day of the week it is, useful in the Summer of Covid-19, and 2) make me remember to be grateful for whatever happened this past week. 

What happened this past week? 

On Wednesday, for the first time since March 8th, I attended mass in person and received the Eucharist.  I remember the last time well, because I remember I struggled with focusing the entire mass and thought almost I needed to go again if only to pay better attention. On Wednesday, you would have thought I'd have had no trouble at all focusing, and yet I still did, because I'd get caught up in the moment, thinking about what the priest said or what the prayers really meant or adding intentions and lo it was time to respond and I'd almost miss it because I'd been trying to really pay attention and yet somehow wandered.  Mentally, I am a lost sheep.  That's what I know. 

The readings were great though, because I loved hearing about Elijah and Elisha and I love the prayer/favor Elisha asks for, for a double portion of Elisah's spirit. It reminded me of Sunday's mass when I felt frustarted with my children not paying attention during the video of the mass and wishing I could take my heart, my faith when it's at its best, and break it into pieces and put some of it in each of their hearts, to help them focus.  Aparently, I need the same.  Asking for a double portion seems like a wonderful request as crazy as it sounds, so I prayed as I walked up and down the driveway, asking for a healing of the whole of our family as we wrestle with the dull montony of a seemingly empty summer.   We need twice the fire of an ordinary summer. 

I'll let you know what happens next week. 

Happy Small Success Thursday!

Small Success Thursday on Thursday....Whoo-hoo!

It's Friday and I'm trying to get back to my blog posting regularly.  (I have yet to succeed).   This post, started on a Friday, is rediscovered on a Wednesday, so I'm going to pretend I wrote Small Success Thursday in time for a Thursday...

Humor blogs require honesty.  Nuts. 

So this past week I redsicovered why I need to make a list.  If I don't make a list, nothing happens. I then panic and wonder why nothing is happening.  For some reason, if I write things down, things happen, and even if they don't happen, we know they will.  Why? I wrote it down. 

Thus I can report, I wrote an article this week, submitted for publication (cross your fingers). 
I read a book this week. (Will be writing a book review and trying to catch up on that, so that Friday is a book review post).   Recognized my humor blog has become rather dry as of late. 

So I read humor books, watched funny movies and discovered most of my jokes right now, are the equilent of Dad jokes.  I need new material. 

Fortunately, I have ten children.

They're pretty good at providing inspiration provided I don't tell them what I'm doing.  We've also started basketball season, so I'll be able to report on the joys of sports from the sideline as three and possibly four (I may draft one if they need another body to field a team), take on the game. 

Paul loves playing.  He also loves shooting. He's not too particular which basket he shoots, as long as he shoots.  However, he also loves winning and knows how to pick a side and root for it with everything.  The other night, his dad took him to a Caps game.  The Caps lost in overtime.  Paul shook his fists.  He shouted.  He complained.  He kicked a sports cup in protest.  The lad is a true hockey fan.   I'm not putting that guy on the ice. 

Lastly, I restarted daily adoration.  All I can say is, whenever I return, the first thought I have is, "I missed this."  and that's my Small Success for this week. 

Small Success Thursday on Saturday

I got sick this week...like let's test if we really need this breathing thing kind of sick.  I'm getting better, I know it's necessary now so I just have to get to where it's no longer work to do.   As a result, I spent much more time resting than writing.

This week, we're doing horror at my school.  I've discovered I'm pretty good at thinking up ideas, which is weird because...I hate being scared.  I don't like scary movies. I don't like scary books. I don't like scary commercials.  I don't like haunted houses.  I love Halloween, but I'm a super light weight when it comes to spooky stuff.  Those haunted hay mazes? Won't do them.  Those super interactive haunted hotels?  Hard pass.   

I even struggle with the spooky Dr. Who's because while I know things will work out, I see the spooky images over and over and over again in my brain.  They won't go away.   For me, all monsters are like weeping angels in my brain.  They stay and they spook me if I'm not disciplined. 

So putting together the materials and exercises for this project, I've had to review a lot of scary stuff.  One movie, two minutes long, I had to watch in pieces, holding my daughter's hand with the lights on.  --yeah, I'm a wimp.  A real wimp. 

But my small success?  I survived a scary movie!  I'm going to have to show this to my students. It's too good an example of a jump scare.  Tune in next week to see if I survive my having to teach it. I'll be sleeping with all my stuffed animals and the lights on. 

(The movie is called Lights Out --the short version, not the feature film). 

Have a great week. 

Small Success Thursday

I started last week, I'm sticking with it.   Welcome back to another edition of Small Success Thursday. 

This week held within it, lovely moments like my daughter's acapello concert.   Here's the video.  (I'm boasting because well, I'm proud). 

It also held a quiet moment when I could only gasp.  On Tuesday, I'd misplaced my rosary. This rosary was given to me by my eldest daughter from her trip to Italy. It came from Padua, from the Shrine of Saint Anthony. It's beautiful. It's precious to me, and I tore apart my room looking.  I also looked in the car, turned my purse and my satchel inside out several times, and begged Saint Anthony to help me find it.  Frustrated and defeated, I took myself to adoration and prayed with a plastic rosary, and made my peace with the loss.   I found one rosary of mine (a purple crystal one), in the back of my car.  I found a silver and white one of mine, in a drawer.  I laughed, they were rosaries, just not that one. 

The next day, half way through work, I reached into my purse to fish out a dollar for a diet coke, and found the red velvet bag with the rosary inside of it, in my zippered pocket.  I'd turned the whole purse inside out. I'd gone through every pocket.  Saint Anthony, I owe you one.  I sat there shaking my head...because the thing was...to get me to pray the rosary, rather than worry about the nature of the beads. Yes, I still felt very happy to find it. 

The next small success came with my youngest daughter making a list of careers for herself including pet watcher, park ranger, artist, boss, taste tester for Tasty Cakes or Entenmann's, contestant on a game show, art teacher, movie maker and nun.   I'm saving the list. 

In the car, on the ride to school, we've worked on practicing gratitude.  We played a game of listing twelve blessings a person.  You couldn't repeat someone else's blessings.   It helped. 

Those are my big moments from the past week.   Hope you had a great week filled with small successes.   

Small Success Thursday

Yesterday, I got the day off...from paid work...and went full throttle into throttling the day at my unpaid gig as Mom.    Small Success Thursday is about those moments when I manage to rise above my own selfishness that would cause me to do little things with great irritation, and pine for doing great things that the world notices.   It's an inverse of how we are to be.   It is a frequent fault of mine. 

So when I manage a bout of good mothering, I've decided to remember it so I'll remember next time I'm tempted to count the costs, to boast in my service, that motherhood is about doing it again and again and again and again, without counting the hours or the costs.  (I'm still working on it). I'll remember, if doing little things with great love were easy, we probably would have had a Doctor of the Church like Saint Teresa of Lisieux long before we did. 

So here's my celebration of doing some little things that needed to be done with something less than grumbling.  Hooray!

1) Five of us managed to get flu shots.  The sixth and seventh will get theirs tonight, the oldest on Friday, and the youngest and second oldest, on Saturday.   I've texted the two college kids. 
2) We completed the FAFSA --at least an hour off of purgatory for that one. It would have been two if I hadn't boasted on Facebook, but I'll take the extra time for the credit on this one. 
3) I restarted my blog.  (This is to keep me honest, it had floundered). 
4) The snow blower is at Home Depot getting ready for the Winter. 
5) Started reading Harry Potter to my youngest. She's enjoying it with me.  It's fun.
6) Playing drums (sort of). 
7) Got to confession this week. 

Have a great Small Success Thursday! 

Small Success Thursday at Home...

I stopped the Small Success Thursday because it became too repetitive in message, but I do miss giving myself a weekly what did you do this past week Sherry gut check.   So here's my homespun Small Success Thursday:  

1) Five of my kids were in A Christmas Carol at the high school where I work, and it was loads of fun, even if everyone felt very tired afterwards. 

2) Working on trying to write tighter prose, in a workshop.  Editing two different types of writing, my brain is melting in the process.  

3) Youngest daughter received first reconciliation this week.  

4) Fifth visited a college for the first time, and is in indoor track and signed up for an SAT.   

5) Third got a job for the summer lined up.  Second got a job for second semester and applied for a summer program.  

6) We did Breakfast with Santa. 

7) The tree is up.  

8) Finished reading a book.  

9) Seventh was in a band concert.  

10) Third and Second will finish exams this week, fourth next.   Everyone will be home by next week.  

11) 1st is hitting the gym each day. (Very proud of him). 

12) Got in a date night and a dinner night out with a friend.   

Lots of little things, all lovely that made for a great two weeks (I put the past two weeks together).  Will try to do this each week, just here. Hope your week is filled with Small Successes.    

Catching up....

So I have a piece over at the Register, The World is Starving for Love.  It's been a busy week, with county Cross Country, Homecoming, preparing for Halloween, dealing with the ordinary business of life, and so writing took it on the chin this week.   I will try to get back in the saddle.  Here's last week's SST if you missed it.  Small Success Thursday: The Grace of Ordinariness. Thanks as always for sharing my work, and I hope to write more soon. 

Small Success Thursday

We survived the great internet famine of 2018, two days sans cable, phone or wi-fi.   Here's yesterday's posting over at Catholicmom.com.   Kids are busy catching up on all the binge screen watching they didn't get for 48 hours.    Reclaiming Sunday.

On a side note, I loved it.  Thinking, there may be trees that fall in the future for another 24-48 hours. 

Small Success Thursday

I realized I've been writing this thing since some time in 2009 I think...but it's Thursday so you get the link to Catholicmom.com and Small Success Thursday.  Sometimes I think I'm just repeating myself, but other times, I remember, I'm writing these so that I can look back at some point (and I should) and know, there were blessings every day, every week, and they weren't just little things, they mattered. 

They mattered because all of life is made up of those little moments, of little memories where you had the opportunity, and you didn't opt for the wrong thing.  I usually remember this reality after I'm correcting life because I did the wrong thing. 

This Thursday, I was running late.  I get up at 5:45 and somehow, by 8:40, I'd fallen behind.  Handing my son a piece of bread and a fist full of washed grapes, I felt like the ultimate slumming mom.  I couldn't even toast the bread...no butter...just bread. Walking down the hill, I watched as my grateful (Grateful) son munched down on his not toast.   We sat on the driveway waiting for the bus. 
He took one of the grapes and made me say prayers.   Grace over meals...over grapes...and bread.   He offered me a grape.  I tried to refuse.  He wouldn't let me. 

 ate the grape and he patted my shoulder and gave me a smile.  He'd given me one of his two loaves and five fishes...it was more than I deserved...and it filled my heart.   He didn't want the food in particular, he wanted presence.   I know this.  I forget this.  I forget it in mass.  I forget it in the evening, when I'm tired or stressed.  He gave me another grape.  The bus came and he gave me a happy, "Bye Mom." and I walked back up the hill, munching on the gift of the second grape, grateful for a son who could see, his mother needed to be fed.   

It made the rest of the day better, but I resolved, tomorrow, I'm making him a better breakfast as a thank you. 

Small Success, Catholic Writer's Guild and More

Okay, this week, we had 4, count them, 4 Back to School Nights over the course of three days, so my brain is officially fried.   

However I did write the weekly feature, Small Success Thursday.

I also am part of a panel this weekend over at the Catholic Writers Conference Online.  (We'll be discussing freelancing).   If you'd like to know more, check them out over here.

Lastly, big news!   I submitted a non-fiction book in August to a Catholic publishing company.  Yesterday, they sent me a contract.  The book is slated to be see print in late spring, early summer. 

It's going to take a while to come down from the stunned look on my face.   

Small Success Thursday Link Up

Here's yesterday's Small Success Thursday link up.  Sorry it's a day late and almost two for that matter, but with school back in session, everything just take a little longer to get to in the course of a day. 

Small Success Thursday over at Catholicmom.com!

It's Thursday...

And I forgot to write a Small Success Thursday this week so there is no linky-love to Catholicmom.com this week.  We did launch three kids to Graduate School, College One and College 2 this week, so there's that, but we didn't get to writing about it. 

I do have a column over at the National Catholic Register if you'd like to take a look-see.  Thanks as always for stopping by, and see you next Thursday for Small Success Thursday. 

Here's the Link: Reflections on What Chastity Means and What it Doesn't, and What it Demands.  I admit, I wish I'd written a little more, it feels like there's so much more to discuss than what can be crammed into less than 800 words. 

This week's link up

I forgot to link up to SST, in part because what's going on in the Church, and the ordinary stuff of real life, took over too much time to sit and write even a link in sentence.  Here's this week's offering, which I can't spend a lot of time on this morning because I have to take her to cross country practice.

Small Success Thursday on Thursday!

It happens sometimes.    Here's the link to my weekly piece over at Catholicmom.com.   Hope your week was full of Small Successes.

Small Success Thursday, maybe don't climb every mountain

Went on vacation this past week, so blogging has been lighter than usual.   However while on vacation, we hiked up a mountain.  The guide said the trail could be described as "Moderate."  Moderate sounds so reasonable.  Surely we who are not totally unfit can handle a "Moderate" trail.  Moderate sounds urbane, rational, modern, smooth. 

Moderate is a relative term. 

A 1.9 tenths of a mile trail all uphill, with the fording of a bog and a dried but muddy creek bed, scrabbling across rocks holding onto nearby saplings, I submit is not moderate unless your family tree includes antlers, or at the very least, hooves. 

Even the dog dutifully marching up the seemingly endless "stairs" looked more than happy to sit by a rock while the humans recovered.  Every person we met on the trail groused about how "moderate" the path seemed to be. 

At at least three points going up, each of us considered quitting.  We goaded each other on, saying, "We'd feel bad if we gave up." "We needed to prove we could."  and "We'd be disappointed."

Two and a half hours of sweat later, we arrived at the apex, and were told by a local attempting to craft actual stairs out of rock into the path, if we wanted a good view, we'd have to go another 300 yards.   We sat and ate our fruit and granola bars and nutella and rued we'd not brought more food.  The view of sitting seemed pretty magnificent to me.

The trek back took considerably less time, but introduced us to reverse muscle pain, as the hind muscles felt over taxed the same way brakes overheat when going down hill too much.   We'd been hiking a moderate trail for what ultimately turned out to be five hours.   Getting back to our cabin, we collapsed for what we'd hoped would be two, but turned out to be four hours.   I'd say we felt moderately tired, if moderate means what it meant when we experienced the moderate trail. 

After the nap/recovery, we joked, "It's a good thing we persisted, or we might feel bad."  and, "Wow, this hurts, but at least we're not disappointed with ourselves."  It hurt to laugh.  After considering, maybe every mountain doesn't need climbing and conquering, we declared ourselves wisened by experience and called it a day.

Happy Small Success Thursday.  Next week, I'm taking on molehills.  Much more manageable.